Campbell wrote: > in a commercial business environment and I am wondering, are there any > license fees for use in such an environment?
1: Legal Issues OOo is distributed under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2.1, February 1999. As such, you can: * Install it on as many computers as you desire; * Give away as many copies as you like; * Sell as many copies as you like, for whatever price you can obtain for them; * Port it to any platform you want to run it on; * Add any functionality that you may want, or need; * Remove any functionality that you neither want, nor need; Provided that the source code to the product is distributed with the product. 2: Deployment Before deployment have your attorney: * Go through all of the licences for all of the software you currently use; * Go through all computer service contracts you currently have; to determine whether or not your current licences / contracts: * Permit you to deploy programs you may currently be using; * Permit you to deploy FLOSS; Some software EULAs (End User Licence Agreements) have clauses which prohibit them from being run in conjunction with FLOSS. Some computer maintenance contracts have clauses which prohibit the installation of any software that is not specifically listed in the contract; 3: Resources The following URLs provide additional information: * http://www.openoffice.org/FAQs/faq-licensing.html * http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html 4: Patents OOo is deliberately excluded from all patent protection agreements that Microsoft has made with other companies. As such, Microsoft has the option of pursuing legal action to enforce its patents. It costs roughly US$1,000,000 for a successful defence of a patent. The primary part of the defence will be to overturn the patent that allegedly was violated. A second part of that defence will be to prove that the USPTO failed to adhere to US Statute law in issuing the patent. Every software patent ever issued has been based upon prior art. It is not unusual for that prior art to be more than a millennium old. It is not unusual for the USPTO to issue patents for things for which they have previously issued patents. It is not unusual for the USPTO to issue patents on things that are blatantly obvious to anybody who can read. it is not unusual for the USPTO to issue patents that they know will be revoked if challenged. It is not unusual for the USPTO to issue patents for non-inventions. xan jonathon --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
